


by way of sorrow

by memorysdaughter



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Car Accidents, Character Disability, F/F, Private Investigators, Relationship Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-03 23:09:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5310638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memorysdaughter/pseuds/memorysdaughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a devastating car accident, Daisy's entire world has changed.  Her relationship with her girlfriend Jemma, her house, her job, even her physical abilities.  She wants only one thing - to find the people responsible for the accident and to make them pay.</p><p>Enter Jessica Jones, a former PI who says she just doesn't want to get involved.  But danger, intrigue, film noir, bizarre crimes, and the possibility of human enhancement are definitely enough to change her mind.</p><p>Together they're on the trail of Daisy's attackers - will Daisy have the courage to face up to the answers, even if they're absolutely devastating?</p>
            </blockquote>





	by way of sorrow

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from a Wailin' Jennys song.

Movies and TV shows were full of people being carried over thresholds.  Brides carried by new husbands, firefighters rescuing all manner of people, war heroes saving platoon-mates – they step forward without hesitation, unencumbered by anyone else, the two of them together like some sort of holy microcosm, their bodies fused for a singular purpose and nothing else.

Daisy spent six months hoping it would be like that when she finally made it home.

It wasn’t.

* * *

 

Jemma hovered in the background, nervously, as the paramedics rolled the stretcher into the space that was once their living room.  Now it was Daisy’s bedroom.

“And when will the home nurse be here?” Jemma asked.  Her voice was high and worried.

“Someone from the agency will be here at eight,” one of the paramedics answered.

“That’s two hours from now!”

“Ma’am, they wouldn’t send her home without training you,” the paramedic said. “I’m confident you can survive two hours together.  If not, please don’t hesitate to call 911.”

It sounded harsh, but he said it in the kindest voice possible.

Daisy just wished anyone in the room would acknowledge she was there.

The paramedics lifted her from the stretcher and onto the hospital bed.  She closed her eyes as one of them settled her in, propping up her body, and the other disconnected her from the ambulance’s ventilator and switched her over to the bedside vent.  She hated the way her body felt when there was a disconnect in the system – the abrupt _pop_ as the circuit was freed from her tracheostomy tube, the short _hiss_ and brief _whir_ as the ventilator tried to give a nonexistent patient another breath, a series of _beep-beep-beep_ s when the ventilator realized it was cut off, the panicked seconds where she couldn’t breathe.

When the circuit was replaced Daisy opened her eyes again.  Jemma was still hovering, nervously watching her.

“I’m fine,” Daisy said when the ventilator gave her a breath. “I’m fine.”

It was the farthest thing from the truth, but she wanted the paramedics out of their house.

“All right,” Jemma said. “I’ll just… see them out.”

The paramedics packed up their gear and rolled the stretcher out of the living room.  Jemma followed behind awkwardly, making small talk.

Daisy looked around the room.  It was changed.  Everything was changed; she hadn’t been home in six months.  The china cabinet in the corner wasn’t there – now it was a shelving unit full of medical supplies.  The armchair was gone too, replaced by Daisy’s frightening new wheelchair.  Daisy had no idea where the couch was, only that her new bed was in the spot where it used to be.

She hated this.

She hated her body.  Hated being trapped inside it, unable to feel it, unable to control anything.  Hated the way she needed the ventilator to breathe, how her body panicked when she couldn’t get any air, how she knew she would never truly be alone again, since if the vent tubing popped off she would be dead in minutes.

She hated the way people looked at her now.

She hated the way _Jemma_ looked at her.  How Jemma talked, her voice either high-pitched and sweet, like an adult talking to a baby, or terrified and irritated.

She hated it all.

She wanted her return home to be triumphant, full of new hope.

Instead it was only reminding her that everything had changed, and not for the better.

Jemma returned alone and Daisy hated the smile on the Brit’s face.

“So, what would you like to do?”

 _Die_ , Daisy thought.  _I would like to die_.

She just stared at Jemma.

“Dinner?  Do you want to watch TV?”

Daisy couldn’t speak.  Everything was different and awkward and all she really wanted was for Jemma to climb in bed with her and hold her, stroke her face and kiss her.  But she knew that wouldn’t happen.  Jemma was scared of hurting her, of breaking her, of doing something wrong.

“TV sounds good,” Jemma went on as though Daisy had replied. “I’m sure we’ve got _Cutthroat Kitchen_ on the DVR.”

Before, before the accident, their nights were full of discussion, of laughter, of visiting friends.  Even their silences were somehow _full_ ; they were so comfortable with each other that extended periods of quiet never felt awkward or wrong.

Now it was all wrong.  Jemma sat in a chair at Daisy’s bedside while they watched TV; they didn’t speak.  Jemma didn’t hold Daisy’s hand or even try to cuddle with her like usual.  Daisy couldn’t focus on the show.  A goddamned _cooking_ show, for Christ’s sake, and it was too much stimulation for her.  She suddenly, stupidly, missed the hospital, the routine and the background noise and the _safety_ of it all.  Jemma’s silence itched like a too-small sweater made of steel wool.

Daisy bit her lip and forced herself to keep her eyes on the TV.  Alton Brown said something to the competitors that caused one chef to slap his head in shock; it might as well have been in Swedish – Daisy couldn’t understand any of it.

“Well,” Jemma said after the first episode ended, “I suppose I’ll fix us some dinner, yes?”

Daisy couldn’t meet her eyes. “Fine,” she said.

“Well, okay, then.”

Jemma made eggs and toast and served them with fruit and juice.  Daisy accepted each mouthful Jemma fed her, chewing methodically.  It all tasted like sand and Daisy wanted to gag, but she knew Jemma wouldn’t understand why.

The doorbell rang at eight o’clock and Daisy wanted to weep with gratitude.  Jemma had to go back to work in the morning; she’d taken almost all of her leave time and several more weeks generously donated by her coworkers, so she wouldn’t stay up late.  Hopefully.

Daisy expected the nurse to be like the ones at rehab – a large, friendly Jamaican woman, maybe, in kiddie-print scrubs and a brightly-colored head-wrap.  Instead, the woman following Jemma back into the living room was thin, pale, dark-haired and dark-eyed, in jeans, a T-shirt, and a leather jacket.  She looked like a biker’s girlfriend.

Jemma didn’t like the nurse.  Daisy could tell.  And for that reason alone, Daisy loved the nurse.

“Daisy, this is… Jessica,” Jemma said.  As she said the woman’s name, her lips pursed as though she was eating a lemon. “Jessica, this is Daisy.”

Jessica nodded at her, didn’t even try to shake her hand like most people did. “You can call me Jess, if you want.”

“You don’t look like a nurse,” Daisy said.

“And you don’t look like a hacker,” Jessica replied.  Her voice was gravelly and snarky, and there was an amused light in her eyes that Daisy loved.

“I’m not.  Not anymore,” Daisy said.  She hated the pause between her sentences where she had to wait for the ventilator to catch up with her.

“I used to be a PI,” Jessica informed her. “We’re allowed to be more than one thing.  Or even return to something.”

“Well,” Jemma said, her voice cutting through the conversation, “I’ll just brief you on Daisy’s care, Jessica, and then I’m afraid I’ll have to get to bed.”

“I’m sure Daisy can tell me what she wants,” Jessica said.  She took off her jacket and slung it over the chair in the corner.

Jemma looked uncertain. “But you need to know about her medications.  And the turning protocol, and her bowel program, and…”

“I read the care manual, and I’ve got it on hand in case I have any questions,” Jessica said. “And Daisy seems like she knows what she wants.”

Daisy almost felt bad for Jemma; her girlfriend looked like someone had denied her the opportunity to play with kittens.  But at the same time Daisy still resented the way she had been treated since she got home – it was like Jemma forgot she was still a person instead of just a medical regimen and a combination of machines.  Jessica only looked at her like she was a person.  It was refreshing and it made Daisy ill to think that Jemma might never look at her that way again.

It still took an hour or so for Jemma to decide she was ready for bed.  Daisy could hear her fussing about in the kitchen, and she popped in to check on the status of things in the living room several times.  At last Jemma kissed Daisy’s cheek.  Her lips were cold. “Good night, love.  I’ll see you in the morning.  And if you need anything…”

She hesitated and Daisy _almost_ felt like bursting into tears, like apologizing, like begging Jemma to hold onto her.  But the phone rang and Jemma sighed. “I love you.  I’ll see you in the morning.”

When Daisy was sure Jemma was really upstairs for the night, when she heard the bedroom door close (the bedroom she and Jemma used to share, not like Daisy could forget or anything), she flicked her gaze to the nurse. “Hey,” she said, her voice raspy from disuse.

Jessica looked over at her.

“You wanna help me get drunk?” 

* * *

 

Jessica poured a teeny tiny shot glass of booze and stuck a straw in it.  Daisy rolled her eyes. “That’s it?”

“Until you know how it interacts with your meds, yes,” Jessica replied. “But you need a bath and it might go a bit smoother if you had something to warm you up a bit first.”

“I don’t need a bath,” Daisy protested.

“You just got home from rehab,” Jessica said. “You still smell like rehab, you still feel like you’re there.  Tell me if I’m wrong.”

Daisy just stared at her.  At long last she admitted, “Yeah, I need a bath.”

“Okay,” Jessica said. “Drink this, and then I’ll throw you in the bathtub.”

She sat at Daisy’s bedside, holding the tiny glass while Daisy drank.  When the alcohol was gone, Daisy yawned. “Tell me about being a PI,” she said.

“It was boring,” Jessica said. “I followed people around to see if they were cheating on their spouses.  Most were.  Some weren’t.”

“I’ve read detective novels,” Daisy informed her. “There’s always more to it than that.”

“Were those novels actually film noirs you watched?”

“Possibly.”

“ _She walked into my office looking like someone’d taken her heart all the way to the Orient,”_ Jessica intoned as she scooped Daisy off the bed and set her in the wheelchair. “ _Asked her what kinda gal gets involved with a man like that.”_

Jessica tilted the chair back, slid it into manual drive, and quickly disconnected Daisy from the bedside vent, reconnecting with the vent on the chair’s back.  She was so quick and skilled that Daisy didn’t realize she’d been switched over until they were rolling down the hall.

“You’re good at that,” she told Jessica.

“I need to be,” Jessica answered. “I can’t imagine how scary it must be to not be able to breathe.”

Daisy didn’t speak again until they were in the bathroom – the newly-remodeled bathroom to allow her wheelchair to get through the door, with new fixtures so she’d fit into the bathtub with minimal support, with a handheld shower head, with new tile and new towels.  It was all so different.  It didn’t feel like her house anymore.  She was a stranger in a strange place, living with a stranger… hell, maybe _she_  was the stranger and all of this was perfectly normal. “Um, so, I know that for this to happen I need to have my clothes off, and my body…”

She waited for the ventilator to breathe for her.

Jessica spoke before she could get her breath back. “Hey, whatever it is, it’s okay.  You’ve just been through six months of absolute hell.  It’s all right if you don’t have the body of a supermodel.”

And to her credit, Jessica didn’t gasp or flinch at the scars and burns marring Daisy’s torso and her thighs, or point fun at the little plastic port of a feeding tube on Daisy’s stomach.  As though everything was completely normal, Jessica undressed Daisy and put her in the bathtub.

 _She didn’t stare_ , Daisy thought.  _Even Jemma stared.  Jemma doesn’t like the way the scars look.  Jemma's scared of me._

Jessica was so gentle and careful that Daisy didn’t panic, didn’t worry.  She just relaxed and let Jessica wash her body and her hair, let Jessica pull her out of the tub and wrap her in towels, let Jessica dress her in warm, clean pajamas.  Jessica was thorough and, unlike the nurses at rehab, never said anything about needing to move onto the next patient.  Daisy got the feeling that if she’d wanted to stay in the tub all night, Jessica would have acquiesced instantly.

“So, I wasn’t lying when I told your girlfriend that I’ve read the care manual,” Jessica said as she combed out Daisy’s hair, “but there’s nothing in there about your…”

She trailed off.

Daisy licked her lips. “My accident?”

“If that’s what it was.  I get the feeling you weren’t always like this.”

“No.  Definitely not,” Daisy said. “I was… I was working on a project for the biotech firm where Jemma works.  My consulting company does a lot of jobs like that – people hire us and we come in to test their computer security.  We also set up new security systems for them, or look for ways their businesses could improve the computer systems they use.  We look for the loopholes and close them up, reroute the systems so they're stronger.

“One night I was working late there.  I’d discovered a strange log-in pattern from a specific terminal that was only supposed to be used by three or four personnel.  It was a terminal responsible for tallying and organizing the locations of biologic specimens, and someone had been breaking in and stealing various biologic materials – tissues, blood samples, and some other things.

“I was going to go to the head of the lab in the morning and let her know,” Daisy went on, letting the vent catch up with her, “so I printed out all of the evidence and took it with me after resetting the terminal’s log-on protocols.

“I was on my way home when I saw a car coming up behind me.  I slowed down to try to let it pass but it didn’t, so I sped up to get away from it.  That didn’t work either.  I don’t really remember everything that happened after that, but my vehicle was hit by two cars – one from the front and one from the back.  The car rolled six times and ended up slamming into a tree.  I passed out and the next thing I knew I was waking up in the hospital.”

Jessica set the hairbrush down on the counter.

“And I was paralyzed from my C1 vertebrae down,” Daisy finished softly. “Vent-dependent.  Burned over 15% of my body, because apparently the car caught on fire after I passed out.”

“Did they find whoever ran you off the road?”

“No,” Daisy answered, her eyes tired. “No.  And the police have given up looking.”

Jessica wheeled Daisy back into the living room bedroom and scooped her up, setting her gently into bed.  Daisy drowsed in and out while Jessica completed the final few tasks of the evening – suctioning her tracheostomy tube, swapping her back to the bedside vent, brushing her teeth with the suction, putting on the foam booties to protect Daisy’s feet from over-stretching or being injured during the night – and was almost asleep when something occurred to her.

“You were a detective,” Daisy said.

Jessica raised one of Daisy’s arms and placed a pillow underneath it.  She moved to the opposite side of the bed and repeated the process. “I _was_ ,” she agreed. “But I’m not anymore.  I’m a nurse.  That’s my job now.”

Daisy yawned. “But I need someone… I need someone to help me figure out who did this to me.”

Jessica didn’t say anything in response; she continued placing pillows around Daisy’s body, propping up the quadriplegic’s legs before pulling up the sheet and blanket over Daisy’s body.

“You said… we can return to being something,” Daisy murmured sleepily.

“We can,” Jessica said. “But I can’t return to that.”

“Please,” Daisy pleaded. “ _Please_ find out.”

“What’s it going to change?”

“Nothing,” Daisy whispered, and her eyes drooped closed. “And everything.”


End file.
